blinding leaps of faith
by GuardianSaiyoko
Summary: Marinette has to take several more deep breaths, but she finally manages to hiss out (and it is nearly a hiss, Chat Noir would be proud), "Want to join us, Chloe?" (Marinette and Adrien aren't the only ones upset by Lila's lies).


(this was previously published on ao3 under GuardianKarenTerrier; it's still me).

Marinette's more than a little startled the first time Adrien catches her on the way out of the school building and asks if he can join her for lunch. He actually almost seems shy when he says it, and she's pretty sure he's drawn them off to the side like he has so that his bodyguard can't see them, and she has _no idea _what she actually says in response because _Adrien's _asking to _come home with her _while very obviously dodging his bodyguard.

Somehow, they do both end up eating lunch at Marinette's kitchen counter. She offers, nervously, to make more of a lunch for them, and tries to get Adrien to actually go sit down at the table, but he keeps insisting he'd rather she enjoy her lunch too.

Marinette's on cloud nine by the time they sneak back to school.

(They do _sneak_ back, and Adrien is having entirely too much fun darting and ducking behind trees as they make their way back, and Marinette can't stop giggling because she's hardly ever seen him act like this. Even when they were staying hidden together to dodge his crazed fans they'd been too focused to really _enjoy_ themselves the way he so clearly is right now).

"All right, we're clear," Marinette whispers as she peers around the last corner into the school building, well past the point where hiding is even a little bit necessary still, and then she realises Adrien's ducked around the corner with her anyway.

His chin is nearly resting on her head as he whispers back, "Roger that," and his arm is pressed up against her side, and she might be dying, just a little.

She also hasn't had quite this much fun since she first taught Chat Noir how to play tag.

(She thinks, suddenly, that Adrien would probably like playing tag, too).

They slide into their desks with a lot of unnecessary giggling, earning them weird looks from Nino and Alya both, but Marinette doesn't care. She had lunch with _Adrien_, and they had fun, and towards the end of class he turns in his desk and asks her under the noise of their classmates packing up if he can join her the next day, too.

Marinette can feel Lila's glare boring into the back of her skull.

She'd have said yes either way, because _obviously_, but she doesn't even stutter as she agrees. She's not about to say no to both more time with Adrien _and_ a chance to prove to Lila that her lies aren't about to work on _everyone_.

Even if it's still more than a little depressing that they seem to work just fine on everyone _else_.

"Well," she tells Tikki, later that night, spinning around in her desk chair with what she _knows_ is a lovesick sigh. "This isn't exactly what I pictured, admittedly, but-" She gleefully squeezes her cat pillow, brought down from her bed for that sole purpose. "Can you believe her lies are actually helping me be _closer_ to Adrien?"

Tikki flits down to settle on her shoulder, curling up close to Marinette's neck in a way she almost never does. "I want to tell you to be careful, Marinette, but I don't think Adrien's ever going to believe anything Lila says about you. He trusts you more than he does her."

"Yeah..." Marinette sobers a little. "But Tikki, I thought that about Alya, too. And she _didn't _believe me." Marinette sighs. "I don't- understand, Tikki. She's not even a _convincing_ liar."

Tikki sighs and nuzzles up against her. "Sometimes, people do only hear what they want to hear, Marinette. Don't let it get to you, she can't keep it up forever."

She can, as it turns out, keep it up for a surprisingly long time.

But even more surprisingly- Marinette doesn't care anymore.

Adrien's still ditching his bodyguard to have lunch with her instead, away from the Lila fan club that regularly collects in the cafeteria.

She misses Alya, she really does, and more than once thinks about what Tikki said and tries to guess what is it about Lila that makes Alya want to believe her, but having Adrien around helps.

They don't always go to the bakery- sometimes they go to the park, or a nearby cafe, or the library if they've forgotten to bring food or aren't hungry (which, as it turns out, they're _both_ prone to doing). Once they actually break into the gardens at Adrien's house, and the way he starts snickering as they climb over the wall and into the garden of his _own house_ is honestly really endearing.

Marinette thought that maybe her crush would finally calm down, now that she's spending more time with him.

That is not happening.

No, it's so much worse than that.

Not only does she think she's only falling _more_ in love with Adrien she keeps catching herself thinking things like 'oh, Chat Noir would _love_ this' as they scale fences and run and weave to and from school like they're being followed and duck behind benches in the park (because they are still, technically, hiding from the Gorilla even if the man has made a very obvious show of deciding that wherever Adrien is during lunch is _his_ business). By now Marinette thinks she'd honestly _love_ to see how well Adrien and Chat Noir are likely to get along.

The boy is actually a _dork_ and it's _adorable_. It's also really, really fun, more than enough so that Marinette doesn't mind quite so much when Lila speaks up so haughtily in class and loudly dismisses Marinette's own contributions to class discussions and talks over everyone else. It still makes her angry enough to be alert and wary of incoming butterflies, but now every time she feels her stomach start to clench in anger she can drop her gaze to the seat in front of her and see Adrien smiling gently at her and- no akuma is going to catch them, either of them, as long as they have- _whatever_ this is.

If things were normal Alya would be teasing her constantly. If things were normal.

Marinette's no longer sure she wants that normal back.

She wants _Alya_ back, of course she does, and she knows because he's admitted it that Adrien's finding it hard that he's drifting apart from Nino as well, but-

Marinette knows it's selfish of her, but she doesn't want to give up this miraculous new friendship with Adrien, either.

By as early as the third day she's no longer stuttering around him at all, not after teasing each other all through the park about how they both keep trying to hide behind completely inadequate barriers.

"Marinette," Adrien calls, laughing. "Why did you duck _under_ the bench, I can see all of you from here!"

Marinette straightens up and drapes her arms over the top of said bench, completely unable to keep a smile from splitting her face as she returns, "You say that like you fit behind that tree, I can see you too!"

She's really pretty certain the Gorilla does know exactly what they're up to, but he never looks very hard for them.

The fifth day is when Adrien suggests breaking into his own house.

Marinette finds herself staring at the wall, nervous. It wouldn't pose a problem for Ladybug but Marinette should probably at least _try_ to downplay her athletic abilities.

Except that then Adrien goes scrambling up the wall like Spiderman himself, and Marinette can hardly let _that_ stand, and she can't stop herself from wanting to impress him besides, and she almost beats him to the top even with his head start.

"That's amazing," Adrien breathes even as he offers her a hand up onto the top of the wall, a light in his eyes that she's never seen before they started these strange little adventures. "_You're _amazing, Marinette."

"You did it first," Marinette points out, brushing herself off as she tries not to blush. "You're just as- just as amazing."

He flashes her another smile before tugging her after him into a controlled tumble down from the wall, onto a stunningly convenient piece of topiary.

(She's really beginning to wonder how much sneaking around he actually _does_).

By the beginning of the next school week, when Marinette hesitates in the doorway because Nino's leaning over their desk to talk to Alya, she follows Adrien's wave nearly automatically.

She doesn't actually think about what she's doing until she's already slid into the seat next to him.

"Hey," Adrien whispers, sliding a notebook towards her. The margins are full of doodles and weird loopy cursive that doesn't actually seem to spell anything out, other than the occasional L and B, but a moment later Adrien scribbles _Stay here, let's see if they notice _off to one side.

Well. Marinette's definitely not going to argue with that.

Alya at least a little bit registers it, because not long after she leans over long enough to say, "Thanks!" nearly in Marinette's ear, and Marinette gives her a thumbs up without turning around.

Marinette's still- well. She's still more than a little upset that even _Alya_ so readily sided with Lila, but- but it's Alya. She'll always be one of her best friends.

Even if it looks like she has some more competition for that spot, now.

Well, that she knows about. Marinette's honest enough with herself to know that Chat Noir will _always_ be her best friend. It's a relief to know that even if, somehow, Lila _did_ find a way to sway Adrien to her side- well, she definitely won't ever convince Chat Noir.

Marinette actually sees a butterfly turn back at that thought one day and feels an immediate rush of gratitude towards her partner. She can always count on her cat to have her back and to ground her, even when he isn't physically there.

And Adrien's doing the same thing, now.

"I can't _believe_ everyone is still falling for this," Marinette groans, sprawling on her back on the grass at the park. It's been long enough by now for her to be comfortable doing that around Adrien.

Adrien flops down on the bench above her, toeing at her shoulder with amusement, and Marinette makes a face up at him.

It feels so good, to _be_ this comfortable with Adrien. Even if everything does still go pear-shaped Marinette always will have had this.

"It'll work out, Marinette," Adrien reassures her softly, earnestly. His green eyes spark down at her so happily that she has to look away. "I mean, _we_ know she's lying, so it's not like- I dunno, it's not like if she were an akuma. We don't have to run while Ladybug fights her, we can let her talk herself into a corner. She can't keep every lie she's told straight forever."

"First of all, you mean Ladybug and Chat Noir," Marinette corrects, dryly, because Adrien has a weird tendency to focus more on Ladybug and no matter _how_ much Marinette wants to melt around her crush she won't let her partner go unappreciated. "Second, I think she's _worse_ than the akuma. At least the akuma can be _stopped_." Marinette groans, throwing one arm over her face. "I _wish_ she was just an akuma. Akuma fights are usually _short_." Short enough that losing each other during them hasn't been suspicious yet, thankfully.

Adrien's foot nudges her again and Marinette lets out a theatrical groan and hears him giggle.

Marinette had worried, at first, about being over-dramatic in front of Adrien.

Then he'd dropped an ice cream cone on the way back to school one day, taken one look at it, one look at her, and dropped to his knees with a dramatic wail and a blinding smile until she'd pulled him back up, laughing.

It's true that the rest of their class has hardly spoken to her since Lila joined them. It's true that Lila is obviously trying her hardest to discredit Marinette, to keep her friends from wanting anything to do with her. Even Alya is growing more distant by the day. Lila's still _trying_ to convince Adrien to stay away from Marinette, too, but it's having the opposite effect.

Because Lila didn't count on Adrien being so willing to back Marinette up, and Marinette herself had never counted on becoming this much closer to Adrien this quickly. She really hates to admit that Lila's done her a favour, even on accident, but- she's _really_ been enjoying herself.

"It's not nice to call someone worse than an akuma, you know," Adrien tells her, though his voice is light and teasing as he leans over her from the bench, hands clasped together when she blinks up at him. Oddly enough, he blinks back as though it's a reflex.

Marinette starts to say something else.

She doesn't have a chance to finish, because a third person abruptly throws herself down with a huff onto the other half of the bench.

Marinette sits up in a hurry, brushing grass off her shirt as she does, because she was in no way prepared for _Chloe_ to barge in on the time she's gotten used to sharing with Adrien alone.

"A week and a half," Chloe says, fuming, and Marinette pauses and exchanges a confused glance with Adrien. "A week and a half! Adrikins, I've only been gone for a _week and a half_, how has that- that _harlot_ tricked everyone into thinking _she's_ the greatest person ever to grace them with their presence?" Chloe tosses her hair back as she sniffs and adds, "Which would actually be _moi_, naturally. Or Ladybug, I suppose." Her voice turns syrupy sweet as she says, "Not that they shouldn't appreciate _you_ as well, Adrien."

"Hi, Chloe," Adrien says, sounding oddly resigned. "How was New York?"

Chloe... falters.

Marinette thinks of how very, very cold Chloe's mother had been while she was still in Paris.

She thinks of the way Chloe's voice had broken when she'd asked her mother why she didn't love her.

She gets up, brushes off the worst of the grass as best as she can, and looks somewhere between Adrien and Chloe as she says, "We don't really know, Chloe, but everyone else _does_ believe her." Marinette hesitates, but she genuinely does want to know. "Why don't _you_?"

Chloe eyes her with a distasteful sniff, but one glance at Adrien's suddenly neutral expression and she goes soft again. "Well, she's not actually a very _good_ liar, is she? Any idiot can see that she's only lying for attention. _Ridiculous_."

"Which you, of course, have _never_ done," Marinette mutters.

She thinks it's under her breath, but from the way Adrien's eyes flick to her for a half second she thinks he heard her anyway.

Marinette takes a deep breath. Then another.

She's really, really loved this past week and how well she's been getting along with Adrien. She really has.

But Alya is growing distant, and Nino has barely spoken to Adrien since they switched seats (and Mme. Bustier seems to be pretending not to notice that they've never switched back, this time, even when Lila tries to point it out), and Marinette thinks if she didn't have both Adrien to talk to during their limited free time and Chat Noir to talk to on patrols or during fights she'd probably have had to shout down more than a few black butterflies by now.

And Sabrina has been very blatantly ignoring Chloe all morning.

And Queen Bee has been a genuinely helpful teammate, at least now that she's getting her legs under her a little more. Marinette doesn't bring Chloe the Bee Miraculous very _often_ (and admittedly she frequently begs Chat Noir to go instead), but Chloe has, honestly, been proving herself and Marinette can respect that.

"_We_ know she's lying," Marinette says, quietly, gesturing at herself and Adrien.

"We've been leaving to avoid the Lila fan club at lunch," Adrien admits, scooting off the bench to stand himself. He moves to stand a little closer to Marinette than would honestly be comfortable if he were anyone else, but, well, first of all he _isn't_ anyone else, and second Marinette's- noticed a lot of things that she really should have picked up on sooner, now that they're actually hanging out like friends.

Adrien simply doesn't seem to _have_ much of a concept of personal space. Between the way Chloe physically throws herself at him, and how cold and distant his father seems to be, Marinette can see why. Those two extremes have to be hard to reconcile, especially for someone who's been homeschooled all his life until now.

Marinette has to take several more deep breaths, but she finally manages to hiss out (and it _is_ nearly a hiss, Chat Noir would be proud), "Want to join us, Chloe?" She gestures again, a little more vaguely. "We have to keep changing places but none of them are anywhere near Lila."

Chloe looks stunned for a moment, although she covers it up quickly.

Despite everything, Marinette is still surprised when she agrees.

She's even _more_ surprised when Chloe sneaks all three of them into her father's hotel for lunch the next day.

"Uh, are we supposed to be back here?" Adrien says, hanging back a little bit as Chloe tries to convince them to follow her through a door in the back of the kitchen that Marinette's never seen before. She'd thought she'd been over every inch of this hotel with Chat Noir by now but she wasn't familiar with the back passageway Chloe took them in through, either.

Apparently Adrien isn't the only one who likes to make a game of sneaking and spying.

It's not really like Marinette has any ground to stand on there, anyway. This is not how she thought she'd find herself bonding with anyone except possibly Chat Noir, but if anyone had told her a month ago that she was going to find herself breaking into buildings with Chloe _and_ Adrien she would have really wondered what was wrong with them.

"Of course we're not," Chloe says, snapping a little, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

Marinette notes with amusement and not a little bit of pride that it's the same calming exercise Ladybug taught her during their last fight.

"No one's going to come looking for us back here though, are they," Marinette points out, unable to keep mischief out of her voice, and Chloe starts to say something and stops.

Chloe does that a lot, actually, since she's been Queen Bee. She has a much better handle on her own outbursts than she used to.

It only takes two days for Alya to catch on, this time.

"Girl, what is going _on_ with you?" Alya hisses at her in class when Adrien's late, leaning far over her desk to talk to Marinette in front of her. "Don't get me wrong, babe, I am _thrilled_ for you and Nino said he's never seen Adrien this happy, but- but _Chloe_? Don't you think that's taking it too far?"

Marinette leans back a little to answer, but not as far as Alya leaned forwards. "She really has been doing better, you know. I think being Queen Bee is good for her."

Alya looks conflicted.

Marinette feels a stab of guilt, because she'd chosen to ask Queen Bee for help over either Rena Rouge or Carapace the night before. Oddly enough, Chat Noir had agreed with her choice without asking why, and they'd even both gone to grab Chloe.

Chloe had looked so _happy_ about it, too. Marinette's still not quite used to seeing Chloe happy. It softens her face, erasing her usual pout or cruel smirk, but it also- softens the rest of her, somehow. She'd practically been glowing, even as she returned the Miraculous to Ladybug's outstretched hand.

"Yeah, well," Alya says, finally. "Maybe she's a little better. But did you hear what she did to Lila yesterday? She threw her whole lunch tray at her!"

Marinette blinks. "Alya, Chloe wasn't _here_ for lunch yesterday." They'd been at the same cafe where Adrien's ice cream had met a terrible fate the week before, and although Chloe had complained the whole time she'd also ordered more than enough ice cream for all of them.

Even if she'd pushed Marinette's at her with a disdainful, "Hmph, they have this order wrong, I _hate_ strawberry. You don't mind leftovers, do you, Marinette? After all, you probably nearly live off them, living in a bakery."

Before Marinette could get upset (though, honestly, she's not that sure she would have- by now she's fairly used to Chloe's- Chloe-ness), Adrien had interrupted gently to say, "Actually, Chloe, they give out their leftovers at the end of the day. If it's all right with Marinette, we can probably go ask if they have some later."

Honestly, her parent's stunned expressions alone are very nearly worth bringing Chloe with them for.

And Marinette's not really worried, anymore. No butterflies are going to find purchase anywhere in her. Lila can spin all the lies she likes, but Marinette knows they aren't true, and Adrien does too, and while she might still be having a lot of difficulty adjusting to Chloe's sudden increased presence in her life at least Chloe is so far outside Lila's influence that she would be willing to believe _Marinette_ first.

And, of course, Chat Noir would never let her down.

"How do you know where Chloe was for lunch yesterday?" Alya asks, finally, triumphantly. "She _could_ have thrown her tray at Lila."

"Chloe literally never eats in the school cafeteria, Alya," Marinette points out, tiredly. "She hasn't in years."

"Besides," Adrien says, pressing one hand against Marinette's shoulder to let her know he's there before sliding in next to her, "Chloe was with us."

Alya's jaw drops.

Nino, who arrived at the same time as Adrien but not actually _with_ him, looks resigned instead. "Are you really back to spending time with _Chloe_, dude?"

Adrien shifts a little, uneasily, and Marinette turns in towards him just slightly, the way she might do if Chat Noir was worried before a fight.

His eyes flick to her and back and he takes a steadying breath before saying, "Yeah, I guess we both are. Everyone else would rather spend time with Lila, recently."

"I- I guess, but dude- Chloe?" Nino asks, dropping into his seat. "She's- so mean, dude."

Marinette takes a deep breath of her own and says, "You know, she really is getting better. And, well-" Marinette hesitates a moment, but she actually does want to see Alya's reaction to what she wants to say. "She's been nicer to me than Lila, recently. In her own way, admittedly, but she has been."

"I still don't get what your hang up is about Lila," Alya returns, frustrated.

"She's pretty mean, too, Alya," Adrien says, softly. "To Marinette and Chloe both."

Alya looks no less frustrated when the bell rings and they have to stop talking, but Nino is starting to look thoughtful.

Chloe sweeps past them just a little too late to get to her seat in time and pitches a crumpled note at Marinette as she does. Adrien leans over her shoulder to read it as she unfolds it and she moves to let him, hearing a weird sound from behind her as she does so.

Well, if Alya had been paying closer attention, she'd know that Marinette and Adrien have gotten to the point now where that's normal. Chloe doesn't even react, although Chloe, too, is too obviously aware that Adrien doesn't seem to understand personal space. She even seems aware that it might partially be her fault.

The note says _tell her she's a reporter, she should know to fact check._

Marinette snorts, an ugly sound, and glances up in time to catch a flicker of a more genuine smile on Chloe's face for a second.

Marinette's sure, initially, that she's doomed herself by asking Chloe along on their lunch adventures, but to her continued surprise it's not that bad. Chloe's still rude and either Adrien or Marinette have to run damage control more than once when she nearly gets someone akumatized, but Marinette is self-aware enough to know that she's caused a few herself, and Adrien is much too kind to let it happen at all.

There's a day when they're all three sitting at Marinette's kitchen counter (which is still absolutely surreal, and she can sense her mother's baffled stare from here) and Adrien and Chloe both keep wincing when they hear someone yelling in the bakery about his order being wrong.

Marinette's definitely gotten a better idea of why their friendship exists, by now, and she slides out of her seat with a sigh and says, "I'll go see."

"I could-" Chloe starts.

"Please don't," Marinette says, dryly. "I don't think your father would help in this situation."

It only takes a minute to reassure the man that his order's not wrong, just misplaced, and Marinette's just handing him the correct one when she sees the akuma.

It was heading for him, obviously enough, but it veers off-course now and takes off for the residential part of the house.

It takes off towards Adrien and Chloe.

Marinette vaults the counter to chase after it, shouting an apology as she does.

It's going for Chloe, that's obvious immediately, but Adrien's thrown himself in front of her and it can't get around him. It also seems unwilling or _unable_ to go for Adrien himself.

"Chloe, it's okay," Marinette calls, wincing a little at the cognitive dissonance saying that causes. "He's gone and it's fine. I-" She wracks her brain, trying to figure out what else it could be that made Chloe a target. She knows now that anyone shouting in anger is enough to make Chloe and Adrien both nervous (and she doesn't very much like all that implies) but the akuma went for Chloe _after_ that.

Adrien figures it out before she does.

(Her crush has _not_ been getting better over the past few weeks).

"Chloe, thanks for offering to call your dad but Marinette's right, it wouldn't have helped," he says in a rush, circling slightly to stay between her and the angrily darting butterfly. He flicks his gaze to Marinette for a second when he sees her pick up a bowl from the counter and start to sneak up on the butterfly but he keeps talking. "But that was still nice of you, it's good that you tried to help and we appreciate that!"

The akuma hesitates, confused.

Marinette dives forward and slams the bowl over it, upside down.

"If one of you has the Ladyblog open on your phone," she says, a little shakily, "Now might be a good time to contact Ladybug. I'm- I'm gonna-" She grasps feebly for an excuse for a moment, then says, "I'm gonna take this up to the balcony where she can find me right away. Stay down here so it doesn't try again, please?"

White-faced still, Chloe actually nods without saying anything.

It only takes a few minutes for Marinette to transform, cleanse the akuma, and return. She's probably lucky they aren't suspicious that it took so short a time, but Marinette's more rattled than she'd expected to be. She still doesn't exactly _like_ Chloe but she doesn't want to see _anyone_ akumatized.

And she hadn't really realised, before, that Chloe considers tattling to her father _helping_.

Chloe gets a little better still, after that. Apparently gratitude over an obvious rescue _doesn't _apply only to Ladybug, although if Chloe starts up any kind of hero worship _outside _of their suits Marinette thinks it might break them both, a little.

Lila still hasn't let up, but it's not having any kind of effect on Marinette anymore, and that seems to make Lila more frustrated yet.

"Mme. Bustier," Lila calls out, sweetly, in the middle of class. "I can't take notes today, I used new nail polish and it's making my arthritis flare up. Can Marinette take them for me, since she's closer?"

"That's the same cheap nail polish you use every day, Lila," Chloe says without looking up from filing her own nails. "If it's hurting your hands it's probably only because you got it out of a bargain bin."

"Mme. Bustier-" Lila starts to whine, but Chloe cuts her off again.

"I don't think Daddy would like hearing that you're letting one student boss the others around," Chloe says sweetly, leaning back and admiring her nails. "Besides, you don't want Du- Marinette's notes. They're unreadable. Alya has much better handwriting."

"_Why_ did you make a deal with the devil, exactly?" Alya hisses from behind Marinette.

Adrien leans back a little and says, far too innocently, "If she really does need notes, are you planning to refuse?"

"But she _doesn't _need-" Alya stops.

"No, Alya, she doesn't," Marinette sighs.

Nino says nothing during that conversation.

Nino says nothing even as Alya's fuming her way through an entire separate set of notes for Lila.

Nino says nothing right up until he catches Adrien, Marinette and Chloe on their way out the door and asks sheepishly if he can come with them.

"I'm sorry," is the first thing he says to Marinette as they make their now-familiar detour through the back way into Chloe's father's hotel, taking turns swiping food from the kitchen counters before darting back into hiding. Marinette felt guilty the first time they'd played this game, but Adrien and Chloe had assured her that they'd done it as kids, too, and that the staff knew about it and has never been anything but indulgent.

There's a larger variety of food where they can easily sneak off with it now than there was when they started, so Marinette's inclined to believe them.

"It's all right, Nino," Marinette says, sighing, as the four of them settle back into the space between the walls Chloe's shown them and trade spoils around. Marinette and Chloe take turns throwing various cheeses at Adrien, because even though she's never actually seen him eat any of it cheese seems to be his favourite thing to swipe when it's his turn, and Nino watches them with a weird look on his face. "I mean, pretty much everyone believed her."

"_You_ didn't," Nino says to Adrien, confused.

Adrien shrugs and throws a cookie at Marinette in retaliation for the cheese. "I was there when she lied to Ladybug, last time she was here, and Ladybug doesn't like liars. It was, uh- an experience." He winces. "Kind of a memorable one."

Marinette winces, too, because that had not been her best moment.

Nino looks at Marinette and Chloe too, looking torn.

Marinette points at Chloe. "After all this time I know how to recognise a liar."

Chloe sniffs. "And _I_ am a much _better_ liar than she ever will be."

"_Chloe_," Adrien says, despairingly.

They take long enough showing Nino some of their new hiding spots that they run late getting back to school, but an akuma attack halfway there means it doesn't matter anyway.

One good thing about Chloe- she doesn't hang around long enough to prevent Marinette finding somewhere to transform.

Neither does Adrien, actually, he always scatters immediately, and Nino follows him, so Marinette's able to beat everyone else to the fight.

Barely.

Chat Noir's there only minutes after her.

"Chloe's here," she calls as soon as she sees him. "Can you distract while I grab her Miraculous?"

"Of course, my Lady," Chat Noir says with a deep bow and a grin, before bounding away.

Chat Noir's been much happier recently, too. Marinette doesn't know why, but it's infectious, and with her already being happier herself they loop back on each other in a way that makes both of them much more relaxed and confident and light-hearted. It's always seemed a little weird to admit that fighting supervillains alongside Chat Noir is _fun,_ but it always has been, and they improve with every fight, and it's hard not to enjoy the easy teamwork.

Queen Bee also fights much better than she used to. She fights with more confidence as well, and Chloe wasn't exactly lacking in confidence before now; she fights like she's learned she can count on their backup, now.

It's not until after they've won their fight, after Marinette's returned the Miraculous and returned to school, that it even occurs to her that Nino had been there too and she'd still gone for Queen Bee without hesitation.

"Oh no," she mutters as Adrien sidles into their desk, trying very hard to pretend like they aren't both very, very late. An akuma attack always means no one cares that much, anyway. Chloe's not even back yet.

"What is it?" Adrien asks, amused.

"Help," Marinette mutters, still into the surface of the desk. "I think I might actually be _friends_ with _Chloe_ now."

His snickering nearly covers up the choking sound coming from Alya.

But Alya's starting to come around, anyway. Adrien was right- Lila _can't _keep it up forever. It's not much longer before Alya comes slinking after them for lunch one day, too.

"Where- where _are_ we," Alya asks, eyes wide, as Marinette keeps a lookout while Adrien fiddles open a door from an alleyway.

"Back room of a cat cafe," Nino tells her, bemused. "You would not believe the places these three can _get_ to, it's kind of insane."

"Why are we breaking and entering," Alya says, staring between Marinette and Adrien with something like confused despair in her eyes. "Why is- why is _any of this_, actually."

"Because we can, mostly," Marinette admits, sheepishly. "This place actually caught us a while back, but between Chloe and Adrien they agreed we could keep coming."

"So- wait, if we have permission why have we been breaking in?" Nino demands.

Adrien stands up, doorknob turning under his hand. "Come on, this is way more fun."

"You know what," Alya says. "I'm suddenly, like, a _lot_ more worried about how long we left you three _alone_." She doesn't meet anyone's eyes.

Impulsively, Marinette hugs her. "It's all right, Alya. You're here _now_."

Marinette ignores Lila entirely, after that. Lila made herself impossible to ignore before but Marinette has Adrien to talk her down, and Chloe to commiserate with (which is always going to be weird), and now that they have Alya and Nino back they've stopped seeing butterflies trying to target them at all.

Marinette still doesn't like Lila. She doubts she ever will, but then, she also can't believe she counts Chloe as a friend now. Tikki still worries, but in a weird reversal Marinette points out that both the will and responsibility to change rest on Lila's shoulders now, not Marinette's.

"I'm really proud of you," Tikki tells her, flitting around her head. "I'm really happy for you, too. You're so much closer to all your friends now, all because Adrien and Chloe didn't believe her either."

"Yeah," Marinette sighs, a little dreamily still. Adrien's more of a dork than she'd ever dreamed, and she's spending a lot more time with him, but it hasn't made her feel any less in love with him. Even Chloe is teasing her about it, now, whenever they're not both feeling too prickly about the subject. (Marinette's not even sure Chloe actually likes Adrien like that. It's begun to feel like a performance that the heart's gone out of, and Marinette's increasingly not sure Chloe even likes _boys_ at all, and Marinette understands deflection). "And you know what, Tikki? I think we'll be okay."

"I know you will, all of you," Tikki says, with a laugh like a bell, and then refuses to tell Marinette what's so funny.

But Lila's done the opposite of what she'd threatened to do, and Marinette's friendships are closer and stronger than they ever have been.

They _are_ going to be okay.


End file.
